The success of an established music festival with a loyal following has inspired the creation of other festivals hoping to emulate that success.

But in the case of San Diego’s increasingly eclectic Gator by the Bay, which celebrates its 13th anniversary Thursday through Sunday at Spanish Landing Park with nearly 75 musical acts, it was the failure of an established festival that was a key inspiration.

“There was a Cajun festival every October in San Rafael that I’d been going to for years, and it folded for some reason,” recalled Peter Oliver, who co-founded the nonprofit Gator festival in 2001 with fellow Cajun and zydeco music buffs Catherine Miller and Maryann Blinkhorn.

“I don’t know what happened in San Rafael, because the festival there was very well-attended, but a vacuum was created when it stopped. That’s when I asked Maryann and Catherine if they wanted to join with me and create a festival here in San Diego.”

Almost concurrent with Gator’s start, the now-defunct San Diego Street Scene — which began in 1984 and had grown increasingly successful each year — shifted formats.

The shift was fortuitous for the dance-happy Gator, which this year features Grammy-winning zydeco stars Chubby Carrier & The Bayou Swamp Band, blues mainstays Tab Benoit and Nick Gravenites, and such San Diego favorites as Bill Magee, Gregory Page and Sue Palmer, who will debut her nine-woman Ladies Shoes Blues Revue. The festival opens Thursday night with a concert teaming Benoit and his band with San Diego's Teagan Taylor Trio.

“Street Scene did move away from Cajun and zydeco right around the time Gator began,” Oliver, 63, affirmed. “I loved Street Scene in the early days. It was so wonderful and it provided the kind of inspiration that kept us driven to do Gator.”

An unmistakable labor of love, the independently produced, all-ages festival debuted in October, 2001, at the Chula Vista Marina. It lost money for its first five years, according to Oliver, who in 1992 had cofounded the Bon Temps Social Club with Blinkhorn. The club continues to hold monthly dance concerts at the War Memorial Building in Balboa Park.

In October, 2003, Gator moved to Spanish Landing Park, adjacent to Harbor Island. In 2005, after a one-year hiatus, the festival switched from October to May, added blues to its lineup, and — voilà! — a new San Diego success story took root.